Sunday, 17 August 2014

Head vs. Heart

The longest race you will ever run is the race between your
head and your heart. The age old conundrum still plagues a lot of us today.
There is the cold, rational side and then there is the warm emotional side. So
the question often comes down to which one do we follow?

Well a lot of us are inherently very logical and a lot of us
are inherently very emotional. And I think one cannot do without the other.

As far as the logical
people(I shall stick to the variety I Know) go , they do have emotions too ( of
course they too have a limbic system , hippocampus and amygdala). It’s just
that they have grown accustomed to seeing beauty in ideas and concepts since
they are absolutely perfect. This is also why you will find such people
attached to their science or art very tenaciously. So they just choose to look
at a particular side of things. But the best things in life are not things at
all. Somethings do need to be felt. I could agree that evolution has given us a
large pre-frontal cortex. But the limbic system( the emotional center) persists
as well. And the mistake that a rationalist makes at time is to suppress anything
that isn’t remotely intellectual. They brand it as irrational and hence unworthy.
Yet, the limbic system continues working and that need to connect is always
there. If you have read Franz Kafka’s story ‘ The Hunger Artist’ you probably
know what I mean. The hunger artist dies trying to fast for 45 days. And the
only reason he fasts is that he does not like the food that he is being given. The
point being , the craziest of people actually need only the slightest of
understanding . They won’t be irrational , they just won’t be miserable.
Sometimes it may appear that misery and rationality go hand in hand. But I have
recently learnt that that is a falsehood. The purpose of being rational is to
see the truth. And the truth is sublime , though sometimes hurtful. But the
quest for the truth can never really be worth misery. I think it is more
rational and logical that the quest for the truth yields happiness as opposed
to misery. Of course as Bukowski said, “ Beautiful lies , beautiful lies …. Al people
want to hear is beautiful lies .” But then a rationalist is following the truth
because it makes sense and is beautiful. So shouldn’t the truth bring happiness
and not misery? Isn’t a rationalist’s love for misery just another defence mechanism
, or ‘ wall’ or ’shield’ from letting people in? Based on my experiences I believe
that being rational can never mean being miserable. There are certain moments
when beauty presents itself as logic , sometimes it presents as emotion. It
would be a shame if one could not experience both.

Consider the case of a doctor . Working in medicine wards
for a while has taught me that a government hospital gets the most
heart-wrenching cases. Now a doctor has to be rational. He has to not let any
emotions cloud his judgement since his job is ultimately to treat. And nothing
can come in the way of the right diagnosis or the right treatment. But beneath
the white coat , too there is a man. And if you followed the medical jargon in
the preceding paragraph , he too has a limbic system and an insula( the centre
for empathy). He too naturally feels for someone in pain . So what should our
doctor do? Does he become cold and just treat the disease and not the patient ?
Or does he get so involved in the patient that he makes the wrong diagnosis?
Head or Heart? This brings in the concept of medical ethics-The idea that a
physician must be empathetic and understanding along with being objective in
his treatment. This naturally allows both head and heart to function. And that
middle path is what makes the best of doctors. The fine balance between head
and heart.

And on the personal front , there is a time when you have to
listen to your heart , even though your mind is not always sure. Because
somethings (such as emotion) truly aren’t answerable by a logical approach in
their purest form. Sometimes the best analysis is to know when to stop
analysing and when to just savour the moment for what it is rather than what it
could be.

Ultimately , it should suffice to say that a human
ultimately has both head and heart, not just one. The best doctors are those
who feel and treat. The best friends are those who you do not have to analyze.
After all , every recluse needs a muse.